Our hospital stay

The worst part of recovering was waiting for my epidural to fully wear off.  The nurse kept threatening to put the catheter in again if I didn’t get up and walk to the bathroom by myself, and I REALLY didn’t want that happening, especially since the epi had worn off everywhere except for my right leg.  My left leg was fine, but basically from just below my right knee to about 5-6 inches above it was still numb for a few hours afterwards.  I did get up to go to the bathroom, with the help of Mark and the nurse, but I don’t think I could have walked by myself that time without my knee giving out.  It was really weird sitting in the bed and having to ask Mark to move my leg when I wanted it moved.  It would start falling off the side of the bed and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

We were moved to another, much smaller, room during the night because they were inducing someone else in the morning and needed the room we were in.  The new room didn’t have a tv though.  Bummer.  The night nurse was kind enough to wait for my epi to fully wear off before she gave him a bath so I could help.  I had wanted to help give Abbie a bath, but they gave her one very shortly after I had her.  They waited almost 10 hours for me to be able to stand on my leg comfortably to help with his bath.  He wasn’t a big fan, but he did like his hair being washed.

I felt really good after having him.  I wasn’t very sore, and I was able to take a shower, which made me feel a ton better.  Mark spent the night in the hospital with us, which I was thankful for.  He slept most of the time, and got really mad when I woke him up to nurse him, so I gave up after a half hour and he just went back to sleep.

The next morning Mark went home and got Abbie to bring her to the hospital.  Brittney was up visiting on her lunch break so she took these pictures for us.  (Thanks Brittney!)  Abbie came in to see me and walked right by Ben without even seeing him in the bassinet.  I asked her if she wanted to see her baby brother and told her he was right behind her and she very slowly turned her head around to look at him.  It was really cute.  And she immediately wanted to hold him.

She was really in awe of him, and it was so cute to watch her just stare at him.  We were both released from the hospital less than 26 hrs after I had him, so we only spent one night in the hospital.  SO different than the 4 we spent there with Abbie.  I still cannot get over how easy this birth was.  I hope any future births go this well!